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He’s been held in immigration detention for over a month, ever since he flew to Toronto and was arrested at the airport.

But the Hungarian citizen isn’t accused of committing any crimes. His immigration counsel doesn’t even contest his rejection at the border. He has a ticket home and planes depart daily, but the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is keeping him in custody, and he can’t figure out why.

“OK, so you don’t want to let him in,” said Zsuzsanna Loczi, who had hoped to host Csizmar at her Scarborough apartment. “Then let him go home.”

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Loczi started a budding romance with Csizmar on the Internet two years ago and invited him to Canada to meet in person. Now, she says she visits him every other day, making the two-hour journey across town to the CBSA detention centre in Rexdale, where she sits at a booth and picks up a phone to chat with him on the other side of a pane of glass.

“It’s chicken and rice every day for five weeks. I can’t even bring him any chocolate or coffee,” she said. “It’s like, why? He’s not a criminal.”

Loczi says she initially tried to post $4,000 bail for her guest, a sum that would be returned when he left the country, but her offer was rejected. Since then, she says she’s been calling the CBSA, her local MP and the Hungarian Embassy, but can’t figure out why Csizmar can’t just get on the next plane home.

“I’m at the point where I don’t understand nothing,” Loczi said. “Everywhere I go, it’s like hitting a wall.”

Zsuzsanna Loczi and her son Bela Safri have been trying to help their friend, Csaba Csizmar, get out of immigration detention and on a plane back to Serbia, with no luck. (Marco Oved/Toronto Star)

A CBSA agent rejected Csizmar’s entry to Canada because he didn’t believe he would leave at the end of his six-month stay, according to a printed report provided to Csizmar and seen by the Star.

The agent questioned why Csizmar brought family photos and personal documents, but no credit cards or toiletries, and only €95 ($135) in cash, it states.

“I note the subject’s eventual admission that he intends to marry Canadian reception and stay in Canada ‘permanently,’” the agent wrote, concluding that the information Csizmar provided “render(s) him inadmissible to Canada.”

At a Tim Hortons in Scarborough, Loczi and her son, Bela Safri, lay out a stack of papers they’ve received from the CBSA and Immigration Canada. It’s been more than five weeks since Csizmar arrived to stay with them, and he’s spent the entire time behind bars.

He’s had three detention review hearings. Transcripts of the first two show that members of the Immigration and Refugee Board ruled that Csizmar would have to stay in detention because he would be unlikely to show up for an admissibility hearing.

Loczi blushed when the marriage plan came up: “Yes, we met on the Internet. I invited him here to meet. That was my mistake.”

She says their plan was to spend time together while her divorce is finalized. Then they would visit Csizmar’s family in Serbia before deciding whether to get married later.

“At this point, it’s not about why they didn’t let him in, but why they aren’t letting him go,” interjects her son, Safri. “I understand Canada’s point of view … I know people come here and abuse the welfare system. What I do not understand is, why do they detain him for one month and a half?”

On Sept. 26, the immigration board issued a removal order for Csizmar and imposed a one-year ban on entering Canada, CBSA spokesperson Vanessa Barassa said in an email.

“At this time, Mr. Csizmar is detained on the grounds that he is unlikely to appear for removal,” she said.

The paralegal hired to represent Csizmar at his first detention review hearing calls the situation “bizarre.”

“This guy never claimed refugee status,” said Nagendra Selliah. “They could have turned him back at the airport and sent him home in two days … Now they’ve kept this man in detention for five weeks. He’s just sitting here, and the taxpayer is paying for it.”

The CBSA says it costs an average of $251 per day to keep someone in immigration detention, meaning Csizmar’s stay in Rexdale has cost about $9,287.

“That’s a total waste of money and resources,” said New Democrat MP Dan Harris, who has been actively trying to help Loczi resolve the situation. “Once the person withdraws his request to come in, to then have to go through this five-week process to deem him inadmissible shows a big hole in the system.”

Selliah says he has been pestering the CBSA to get Csizmar on a plane and says a caseworker told him they’re waiting for the airline to issue a ticket. While Csizmar’s return ticket isn’t until March, LOT, the Polish airline he booked with, has daily flights back to Serbia, where he lives. Selliah says he could be put on a flight any day.

“They said it would not be a lengthy detention, but I think that even one day is too many if you have not committed a crime,” Selliah said.

LOT did not return a request for comment on the case.

Loczi and her children came to Canada in 1999 as refugee claimants and were granted citizenship in 2011. Since then, they say, they’ve had friends and family visit from Hungary, each arriving with a letter of invitation identical to the one they wrote for Csizmar. Each time, the visitors returned home on time, without any problems.

“Racism is based on assumptions: because you’re this colour, you commit crimes. If you are Hungarian, you will cheat immigration,” alleged Safri. “It’s profiling.”

Safri is angry that the government representative brought up their immigration history at Csizmar’s hearing.

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